Unlikely Tales

Dragon-Ducky

The egg was huge, too tall to fit through Sam's front door, and too wide to be pushed through a window – particularly as their apartment was on the third floor.

Scratching his head, Sam wondered how he was supposed to get it inside without anyone seeing. Currently he and the egg were hiding in the sparse bushes along the back wall of the apartment lot, a pretty terrible hiding place really, but it was all he'd been able to come up with on short notice; and at least everyone was out working and wouldn't be back for a few hours.

His stomach was starting to sink dismally towards his toes – getting the egg inside was looking like an impossible task, accomplishable only with the aid of a crane and chainsaw to cut a giant hole in the roof (and his mother wouldn't appreciate that).

Nevertheless, he patted the egg's rough brown shell soothingly, "Don't worry, I'll get you inside little, err... big buddy."

The egg trembled, as though sensing his self-doubt, and began to rock back and forth in what Sam thought was a sorrowful manner.

"Come on now, don't cry! I promise I won't let that nasty china-man eat you!" Sam had rescued the egg from outside the back door of a Chinese take-out place, where the chef had left it momentarily after it was delivered by a shady woman in a big, white truck. It had taken him over an hour to roll it home, but he refused to abandon the poor thing.

The egg continued to thrash around, knocking Sam off his feet as its violent movements rolled it over onto its side. His muffled protest and attempts to soothe the egg were drowned out by a sharp crack as a large line appeared along the shell's leathery brown side. Another crack heralded the arrival of an even longer hairline split, and then quite suddenly the egg simply split in two.

A wet, scaly, feathery mass (and Sam wasn't even sure how those adjectives could possibly be combined together) leapt clumsily from the broken shell and landed with a thud beside Sam.

A scaled bill shoved him in the chest just as he was standing, sending him flailing to the ground once more. The bill opened to reveal menacing fangs, which most certainly shouldn't have belonged in a bird's bill (even if it was scaly), and a hissing squawk emerged: "M-maaaaa-maaa?"

Sam rolled over onto his back and found himself looking into the most hideously adorable face he had ever seen. The toothy, scaled bill extended into a reptilian black face, with big, anxious, slit-pupilled purple eyes and comically oversized ears. This bizarre head filled most of Sam's view, but in the background he could see a long, feathery, black tail thrashing around excitedly.

The weird creature that had emerged from his beloved egg sniffed him curiously and gazed expectantly at him with its luridly purple eyes. Getting no response other than shocked silence, the giant head retreated uncertainly, and the ground shook as the creature sat back on its heels (or whatever it had instead of heels, Sam thought).

The creature mewed piteously and its eyes welled with tears which rolled off its beak and plopped onto the ground.

Sam climbed cautiously to his feet, "Hey it's okay, I'm err.... I'm here for you little guy." Sam patted the scaly bill tentatively and smiled into the huge, purple eyes.

The baby blinked hopefully and then bounded to its feet, sweeping him up in giant, feathery black wings. Sam's voice was muffled, but brimming with new-found love as he cuddled his new friend, "You and me are going to be the best of friends dragon-ducky!"